Poster #5 - How Objects and Design Challenges Support Family Reminiscing about Museum Tinkering Experiences

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Attention, Learning, Memory

Integrative Statement

We examined the reminiscing conversations recorded by 248 families with 6 to 11 year old children (50% female) shortly after they visited a tinkering exhibit in a children’s museum. Previous research on parent-child conversations in museums indicates that talk about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as exhibit experiences unfold can support STEM learning (Haden, 2010; Sobel & Jipson, 2016). In this project, we studied families' memory conversations after they visited an exhibit designed for tinkering, a form of open-ended problem-solving. STEM talk after tinkering can be important for extending STEM learning beyond the sensory experience of engaging with tools and materials, and can foster understanding and remembering of engineering and other STEM-related practices. Therefore, we asked whether and how STEM-related talk was used in parent-child reminiscing conversations about tinkering. Moreover, because children show mnemonic benefits from elaborative conversational interactions with their caregivers (Fivush, Haden, & Reese, 2006), another key question was what promotes elaborative reminiscing about STEM learning experiences in museums.

Sixty-eight families visited the tinkering exhibit when there was an explicit engineering design challenge to make something that rolls, and the other 180 families visited when there was no design challenge. We hypothesized that the design challenge might help organize families’ engagement in various engineering practices – such as trying something out, experimenting, experiencing success or failure in achieving a goal - in ways that could support more elaborative reminiscing afterward. Families audio and video recorded their reflections using the museum's multi-media platform called Story Hub. In the natural course of events, 40% of families in each of the challenge/no challenge groups had the creation (e.g., a car, a birdhouse) they made in the tinkering exhibit with them when they recorded their reminiscing conversations, and the other 60% did not. Consistent with work showing props can support remembering (Salmon, 2001), we hypothesized that compared to families who did not have their creations with them, those who did would engage in more STEM-related and elaborative talk about their tinkering experiences.

Adults and children who reminisced with their tinkering creations made more elaborative statements that provided new details about the experience than those who did not reminisce with their creations (Figure 1). Moreover, children who experienced the design challenge made more elaborative statements than children who did not visit the exhibit when there was a design challenge. With regard to STEM-related talk, families who reminisced with their tinkering creations named and described their creations more, and talked more about engineering practices and the value of tinkering compared to families who reminisced without their creations. For creation naming and Engineering Practice talk, these effects of having the creation with them were greatest for families who participated in the design challenge (Figure 2).

The results suggest conditions for tinkering and reflection that can support children’s STEM learning. In addition, the work makes theoretical contributions to understanding the role of reminiscing in revealing and even increasing children’s learning. Finally, our discussion will point to ways the work might inform practice in informal educational settings.

Authors

• Lauren C Pagano, Loyola University Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Diana I Acosta, Loyola University Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Catherine Haden, Loyola University
  Non-Presenting Author

• David H Uttal, Northwestern University
  Non-Presenting Author